After our detour at Downton, we hopped on another overnight ferry that dropped us off in Rotterdam, South Holland, within the Netherlands. I haven't made a point to mention the counties the cities are in until this particular place, because many people get what Holland and the Netherlands are. So, to clear that up, just take a quick watch of this video: Holland vs The Netherlands. Rotterdam is the largest port city in Europe, and was a beautiful place especially at night when the lights were doubled by all the rivers. We did a lot of biking through the country, but were not able to see any of the famous tulips. We arrived just too late in the season for that, which was sad. Yet, within the Netherlands is the city of Gouda known for, you guessed it, gouda cheese. There were countless stores selling so many delicious and colorful cheeses, so that sort of took the place of colorful flowers. The one pictured to the side was even flavored with flowers (specifically lavender). It was delicious, though eating it all in one sitting was not the wisest choice I've made. Biking through the Netherlands was a welcome break from the mountains and roadside terrors that Great Britain offered us. Most people there rode bikes, and it's pretty apparent why. Everything is flat. So, so flat. I suppose being beneath the sea level will get you that sort of landscape, and it was perfect for riding around on a bike. Not only was the natural terrain amicable for bike riding, but the country has gone far out of its way to be sure that no matter where you want to go there's a paved bike path. We've had many issues with Google trying to send us down a horrible road in the past, and while it still tried its hardest to do that here, there were always paved options that made travel easy. Outside of the cities, we easily saw more bikers than people in cars, which was a strange sensation. |
We ended up staying a few days in Rotterdam, primarily because it had a wonderful market. The Market Hall, Rotterdam was finished in 2014 so it still had the nice feel of a brand new building. The two glass windows on its front and back are the two largest glass window structures in Europe. The graphic on its ceiling was a 36,000 square foot artwork by Arno Coenen called "Horn des Overvloeds". The work was made in 3D and it was a 1.5 Terabyte file. Just take a moment to think about that.. One file. 1.5 Terabytes. They needed special servers to render the image because of the size, and so they used the Pixar rendering farm. The image was then split into 4,000 pieces and printed onto iron to be shaped into the ceiling.
Next, of course, was Amsterdam. The city was wildly busy with other tourists, and getting around started to become a nightmare. While so many other bicyclists make it so there's plenty of roads everywhere, in the city there just is never enough room, which is just aggravated when you don't know exactly where you're going. One thing we did (but couldn't take pictures of) was the Amsterdam Dungeon. It might look fairly cheesy, but it was a lot of fun. The actors were entertaining and were very good at getting the audience involved. They have these all over the place, so if you ever find yourself near one, I recommend it. |
Overall, I would say that our stay in the Netherlands was amazing. The cities were all pretty clean, public transportation was everywhere, and the locals were all very nice and helpful. It was the first time we were back in a country where we didn't speak the native language, and it was a nice, easy way to break ourselves back into the habit of needing to be sure you can communicate.